The great flying car dream: With Terrafugia, Toyota, and Musk on board, has their time finally come?

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The flying car is the little engine that couldn’t. Yet. They’ve been on the cover of magazines since the end of World War II. Henry Ford built a flying Flivver in the 1920s. Terrafugia is the current standard bearer; prototypes have flown but none have shipped. Elon Musk might build a flying car, he says, and he’s a man who has built rocket ships, so for him maybe it’s not rocket science. The one thing flying cars haven’t done is become a commercial product.

The flying car business has three segments. The most successful is writing about flying cars being just around the corner; this has been a staple of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science when Truman was President. Then there’s writing that flying cars will never fly; that’s solid, too, the latest being “Flying Cars: The Idea That Will Not Die” in IEEE Spectrum. The third and weakest leg is building and selling them. With the recent advent of lighter composite materials, there still may be hope — but so far, it feels like flying cars might be like fusion power: always just a few years away.

Terrafugia has “roadable planes” flying, just not for sale

Terrafugia is the company that has come closest to building and selling a flying car. Based in Woburn, MA, outside Boston, it was founded in 2006. Terrafugia is Latin for escape from earth. The Terrafugia Transition first escaped the runway in 2009 for brief takeoff-landings and has been test-flown since. Terrafugia’s current thinking is to ship the first Transitions in 2015 or 2016. The price is listed at just under $300,000, about the same as the Cessna 172, the most popular airplane built. That begs the question, is the Transition underpriced, or maybe the Cessna is overpriced? Either way, Terrafugia reports more than 100 deposits for the Transition.

Just about everyone calls these things flying cars. Terrafugia prefers “roadable aircraft.” It’s not really intended to be flown 250 miles today and driven 250 miles tomorrow. Rather, Terrafugia envisions the owner and a passenger flying to a small airport near the final destination, folding the wings up, switching the engine from the propeller to the wheels and driving — high-speed taxiing? — the last 10 miles or so to the hotel or vacation cabin. That this fugitive from earth flies at all is also because of exemptions granted by airplane and car safety regulators on takeoff weight, windshield material, stability control, and airbag sophistication.

Other flying cars, loosely defined

Toyota says it’s exploring the concept of a car that hovers just above the road, reducing friction. Toyota discussed it this month at the Bloomberg Next Big Thing Summit in San Francisco, according to The Verge. That’s not quite a flying car and it raises three immediate questions: How do you panic brake with no road-hugging weight, how well does the hovering craft corner on roadways, and are crosswinds a bear, or what? [Read: Aero-X hoverbike goes on sale in 2017: Star Wars racing in your own back yard for just $85,000.]

Elon Musk, talking to a British newspaper recently, said “Maybe we’ll make a flying car, just for fun.” Later in the same conversation he accurately points out that, while he could easily make a flying car, the technology isn’t there to make a good flying car. “The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that’s super safe and quiet? Because if it’s a howler, you’re going to make people very unhappy.”

The very first “flying car” was the Ford Flivver, a play on the Model T Flivver (flivver being slang for a cheap or rough car), but otherwise just a tiny, low-cost plane with a 15-foot wingspan that flew in 1926. It was briefly test-flown by Charles Lindbergh, who reportedly called it one of the worst planes he ever flew. The Flivver killed its test pilot in a 1928 flight to Florida, at which point Ford ended the project.

James Bond’s Lotus sub, Germany amphibious car

Then there are cars you can drive into the water. James Bond drove a Lotus Esprit that was a submarine in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me. That actually was a heavily modified Esprit, not computer graphics, under water. The car was recently purchased by Elon Musk. Shades of six degrees.

In the 1960s, the German Amphicar, a two-seat convertible sports car, could be driven directly into the water and twin propellers pushed it at 7 knots; the front wheels provided steering. Critics said it was dangerous and prone to swamping, though one did cross the English Channel. Production was meant to be geared up to build 20,000 a year, but in the end less than 4,000 were built over four years before the factory shut down.

Don’t give up hope

Despite IEEE Spectrum’s gloomy forecast for flying cars in 2007 as “a flimsy car and a feeble airplane” and again this year, the flying car might still happen. Terrafugia is further along than any of the dozens of prototypes cobbled together in the past century.

If the flying car, or roadable plane, does come to market in quantity, it helps that buyers not think about this in a practical matter. If you can afford $300,000 for a Terrafugia Transition or Cessna 172, you can afford to rent a car at the airport where you land, and if the airport is too small to have cars for rent, you can afford to have someone bring you a car, or keep a car there.

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At first, I couldn’t see the propellers in the picture at the top, so I was like, “how does that generate enough lift?!?”

ShanieOneillnuc

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Mojo

We have enough accidents on the groud – let’s not let people fly through the air causing havoc too.

Stacey Bright

Yes, this is real barrier to entry of flying cars. The system designed to regulate drivers is fairly autonomous, air traffic not so much. There would have to be a massive infrastructure overhaul to the transportation system. The process for acquiring a drivers license, is also a lot less involved (and cheaper) than getting a pilots license. That alone so greatly reduces the potential user base, that flying cars would barely be marketable. The target demographic would basically be people that already own and fly Cessnas.

However in this imaginary future of flying cars, if they re-purpose retired military aircraft as aerial police interceptors, I’m signing up day one.

dc

instead of a flying car researched should be focused on deliverable catapults which launch people to their destination where perhaps they could use a parachute to slow down, or maybe not.

Marc Guillot

The Futurama Tube Transport System :-), that’s the future.

I_know_a_thing_or_two

That sounds like fun! Of course if two people, launched in opposite directions happen to have intersecting trajectories….

Tim

Whiplash anyone? Internal hemorrhaging? This will never work.

dc

the trick is to try and grab hold of something before impact, like a tree limb or light pole.

Mirimon

trebuchet style, easier on the cargo.

DustinALedonne

Terrafugia is further along than any of the dozens of prototypes cobbled together in the past century. http://sn.im/290xdj8

Zunalter

As cool as it would be to fly to work in the winter and not have to worry about icy roads, I think I will just pine for driverless car tech instead since the near-term practicality is much greater.

Tim

Icy runways and heavy snowfall wouldn’t be avoided, though.

Zunalter

Very true, but runways may not be a problem if you have a tilt-wing rotor flying you around. Either way, I stand by my opinion that driverless tech is the more exciting for the moment.

MikeLikes

However, if Terrefugia can deliver on the 2021 anticipated build for the TF-X, it will probably beat the driverless car to market.
I, for one, can’t wait. Not having to deal with traffic, cutting several hours off trips of 300+ miles, and cutting 1/3 of the distance means I’m on board…this makes a weekend trip back to see my aging parents a much more likely scenario for me.

Zunalter

As soon as you get your pilots license or whatever the gov. is going to require to allow you to fly around populated areas in that thing…not to mention the insurance costs.

Max

Why these will never really take off is obviously not the price. Its the fear of death at your own hands!

RAWLCM

Thousands of people fly ultralights and powered hang gliders despite the high risk of dying in one.

MikeLikes

Check out the statistics, though. Many more people die in car accidents each year. I’m not saying that flying is safer…rather, the danger is in landing and taking off. Once you’re in the air, however, you don’t have nearly as many other vehicles to have to contend with, including drunk drivers. When I drive a car, I’m less worried about how I’m driving than I am about the texting idiot driver next to/ahead/behind me.

APOI

what extreme ugly looking Car with even more urgy sounding name terrafugia what kind of Terra-fucKia name it is !!!

Can’t think of any brighter future than being surrounded by my fellow commuters three thousand feet in the air.

APOI

.

Marc Guillot

A car- helicopter seems to me more feasible than a car-plane.

Michael Clapp

Yes a Cessna 172 is too expensive at 300K. Of course the reality is that you can buy essentially the same airplane used with different avionics for 40K. Plus the older one would probably carry more weight due to being lighter.

The idea of landing and then driving away while appealing isn’t that practical since the Terrafugia is a mediocre two person car. I’m far better off most of the time leaving a beater at the airport and flying a cheaper yet better aircraft for the cost. I did it for 6 years with a Cessna T210 that cost 100K and a Chevy Blazer. Both held my family of four and 100lb dog along with all their stuff and the plane would easily cruise at 160 knots for 4+ hours.

kroozin

For us poorer folk we can only dream . . .

Michael Clapp

You can get a Cessna 152 for less than a new car (12-24K) and be as fast as a Terrafugia. Up it to a 172 or older Mooney and you’re going faster still. You can still fly relatively cheaply if you don’t need all the bells and whistles.

MikeLikes

Michael, your solution only allows you to fly to one destination. The Terraffugia alternative allows you to go ANYWHERE. Also, it doesn’t say it here, but the Terrafugia runs on regular car gas, so is cheaper to fly, since you don’t need to buy expensive airplane petro.
Just an alternative. You also only need a lite-class license to fly the Transition.
I agree with you on the 2-seat part, though. Having said that, I don’t often take more than 1 person with me when I fly.

Michael Clapp

Mike, I always figured I could rent a lot of cars for the difference in price and get there a lot faster. If it’s a planned destination the FBO often brings the car out next to the plane, air conditioning running and I’ve had them help unload the plane. It’s really pretty convenient. I’ve only had to fly to an alternate twice and both times knew someone who would come pick us up. If the weather was sketchy I drove instead.

Light Sport hasn’t really done much to help the cost of flying. It’s mostly been a boon to those who can’t pass medicals anymore. And because it’s relatively new, the number of used airplanes and their decreased cost just hasn’t shown up. If I really wanted to save money but go fast I’d buy a Mooney. It’s all moot at the moment because there’s no time to fly anymore.

MikeLikes

Sounds like you have a great setup! I’m jealous!

Michael Clapp

Wish I still had it. Work and kid commitments made it too hard to fly enough and stay proficient. It’s not the kind of thing where you can do it occasionally and stay safe so I opted to not fly for a while.

Ivor O’Connor

I want an AWD Tesla Model S with Super Draco methane jets and an autopilot that could fly in all weather conditions.

Piotr

Well, there is PAL-V – tilting motocycle / gyrocopter combo. It looks more compelling than this contraption.

flitetym

A “flying car” or “roadable airplane” is a very silly idea. GA is a very mature and sophisticated industry if only because it is required to comply with Federal regulatory codes in manufacturing, inspection, training, insurance and consumables. To think an entirely new type of personal transport can elude that environmental burden and its costs — while maintaining some remote semblance of utility — is simply “pie in the sky.”

Pun intended.

Mayoo

Most people can’t even handle looking in their blind spot when changing lanes. Don’t give them the Z axis … please.

eonvee375

I WANT A BACK TO THE FUTURE STYLE FLYING CARS, nothing else will do for me sorry… ^^

Marc Guillot

Then you will miss all the fun of trying the first prototypes and models. I know it’s not a Back To The Future flying car, but I wanna be in the first bunch to drive a car-helicopter hybrid.

eonvee375

i guess i’ve put all my enthusiasm in the VR head set development ^^
ill skip on flying cars for now ^^

MikeLikes

Lol. I think I agree with you about 95%. One caveat; with this machine, they probably won’t be OVER you when they fly; they’ll be texting while flying over some farm or other remote area, so maybe it will make us safer than you think.

eonvee375

oh im not concerned about safety ^^ i just dont see how i can talk to chicks in that semi-helicopter thing right now ^^ lol

Tim

It takes a lot of time, dedication, money, and skill to get a pilot’s license. I heavily doubt the FAA is going to allow your average driving-while-texting chucklehead behind the wheel of one of these. Could you imagine the chaos in the air above a city like LA or New York with a bunch of absent-minded, drunk, or 80-year-old ‘pilots’ careening through the skies? I’d imagine we’ll have working teleportation devices long before we have mass transit with flying cars.

kroozin

It could be seen as a form of population control . . .
;)

Tim

Not exactly fair for the innocent flightless people underneath these idiots as they lawn-dart back to earth.

Mirimon

never gonna happen… for good reason.
People have a hard enough time driving their cars on the road without crashing due mostly to their negligence…why would anybody in their right mind let them take to the sky?

Mark Jamison

As someone smarter than me pointed out, we won’t have flying cars until we have truly driverless cars. You get in tell it where to go and fall asleep level of driverless cars. As Elon Musk points out, the noise is the other factor. Would a flying driverless car as loud as a loud motorcycle be acceptable? Once that hurdle is jumped the ability to get to your destination “as the crow flies” would be great. Sure, there will be accidents, and people will die. Then, eventually, there will be air traffic back-ups. There was perfectly good horse and buggy infrastructure we abandoned when cars took over. More importantly, building and maintaining roads and related infrastructure are the expensive part of road driving. Apparently, the trend in charging for road infrastructure is moving from a gasoline tax to a GPS-based use tax which would be much more accurate and much more expensive to the road driver. This accurate and more expensive cost of road driving will further encourage driverless flying car development. When will all these things happen? Who knows.

jburt56

Wouldn’t you rather have a UFO?

Joel Detrow

Why do I see no mention of the Dutch company PAL-V and their prototype PAL-V One? As a gyrocopter, it’s far, far safer than Terrafugia’s roadable plane, and its range on the ground is spectacular. Its first limited production run is due in 2016, just a year after Terrafugia will begin shipping its first production units. The PAL-V One may be more expensive (at €500,000) but it manages to look good both in road and aerial form, and the transition between the two is quite slick. If I was a 1%-er, I’d buy one!

Firstson

I fail to see how this can be called a “car”. I doubt it could even be licensed for highway use.

MikeLikes

Actually, the car part of it is the easy part. They’ve already done that. Getting it OK’d for flight is the real hurdle.

Personally I get nervous when I have to drive across a parking lot that doesn’t have lane marking. The problem isn’t getting into the air. The problem is that other people are also in that air.

In that unlined parking lot other cars can traverse the black top from any direction and from any angle. Someone could come up on you from behind at a 45 degree angle. No one worries about that sort of thing when there are lanes marked out. Most of the areas of approach around your car are ‘blind spots’.

It’s much, much worse for a plane. People can come at you from above or below. The only reason airliners can fly safely is because there is an air traffic controller watching. The only reason small private planes can fly safely is because there are so few of them. Put a lot of little uncontrolled planes in the sky and they will all run into each other.

http://www.rally.cc Mike F.

All this talk and no mention of the Taylor Aerocar! They actually built and flew 6 of these, which is as close to production as anyone has gotten. The Aerocar flew and drove reasonably well, and the few which were sold were used on a regular basis, not just on test flights. No article on flying cars is complete without mentioning this vehicle.

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